This St. Patty’s Day in McHenry, will you put your trust in the Luck of the Irish to keep your car on the road?

Will your car have the luck of the Irish as we approach another St. Patrick’s Day in McHenry? Or will the Blarney Stone hit and crack your windshield? Will four-leaf clovers grow inside your fuel injectors clogging them so your car won’t run? Will Leprechauns turn your tires to corned beef and cabbage?

Fortunately, few of these hazards are concerns you really need to consider. The Blarney Stone, a block of Carboniferous limestone remains in the walls of Blarney Castle near Cork, Ireland, and far from McHenry, IL.

Four-leaf clovers do far better growing in potting soil and not so well in fuel injectors. It’s also unclear why Leprechauns would turn your tires into anything but the rubber they’re already made of. Still, the idea that your vehicle may have a good or bad year remains to be seen.

You may choose to wish on a four-leaf clover that your car runs well the rest of 2023. Maybe that will work for you. Then again, maybe the good fortune you hope to gain from a shamrock depends on what you do to ensure a good year for your car with timely auto maintenance and repairs.

The record of wishing on a plant to ensure safe and quality operation of a vehicle is sketchy at best though, if some get enough green beer in them, they may swear to the power of the shamrock.

A better bet is to kiss your sweetheart while you give him or her a Patty’s Day greeting card, and commit yourself to doing what it takes to keep your car safely on the road.

Change the oil on schedule throughout the year and your engine is likely to enjoy another St. Patrick’s Day in 2024 while operating at the top of its performance. Maintain proper air pressure and balance of your tires and they’ll fare well through another season as long as their tread holds out.

Have your coolant, hoses and belts checked, along with your water pump and thermostat and you’ll have a vehicle that will get you to the store to buy more corned beef and cabbage, or whatever groceries you want, every time you head to the store.

You can even imagine Leprechauns are responsible for testing your battery and charging system to ensure it’s in tip-top condition.

The point is that, if you take care of your vehicle, from this McHenry St. Patty’s Day to the next, you will have considerably greater reason to trust it to keep you safely on the road.

Comments

Is your antifreeze safe from freezing this Richmond winter

You still have time to have it checked Well, there’s no denying it – winter tends to get chilly here in Richmond. We have to deal with snow and ice on the roads, scraping the same off our windows and windshield, and staying warm while we drive. Of course, you had your antifreeze checked before winter rolled into town. What?! You didn’t have your antifreeze checked before winter clamped down on Richmond? So, how’s your antifreeze doing? If you haven’t had it checked, there’s really no way of knowing, is there? This car has overheated in the middle of a Richmond winter. But, on the other end of the spectrum, the antifreeze can also freeze if it's not up to its job. Hopefully, you haven’t had a serious problem with your antifreeze already. If you did, you’d probably know. When antifreeze fails, it’s a potentially catastrophic condition for your vehicle’s engine. You could have hoses that have burst because of freezing antifreeze. Worse than that, your engine block may have crac...

Blocks of ice falling from cars in McHenry could cause accidents or damage

We’ve all seen those blocks of snow falling from behind the rear tires of a car when the snow rolls into McHenry . Fortunately, they’re just packed snow that will disintegrate under your vehicle’s tires as you simply drive right through them, right? Don’t count on it. Those blocks of snow are often packed so tight, condensed by the thaw-and-freeze cycle, that they’re anything but oversized snowballs . They’re often more like boulders. Hit one of those blocks and the collision between the block and one of your tires could send you careening off the road or into oncoming traffic. In some cases, they’re so solid you could pound them with a sledgehammer with little effect. They truly can represent a serious road hazard. The problem is that it’s difficult to tell how solidly they’re packed when you see them on the road, left their unwittingly by another driver. Either way, your best bet is to try to avoid them. But you want to be careful dodging blocks of ice in the road, too. You need...

Get out to McHenry Music Festival for a good time and music near to home

Some folks here in McHenry will load up the car and head out to Red Rock Amphitheater near Denver to see a show. Some will go to the MSG Sphere near Las Vegas. Some will go to the Bonaroo Festival Concert to see a show. That’s quite a bit of driving and you’d better make sure your vehicle is up to the trip. What happens, however, if something goes wrong – if your vehicle breaks down while driving there or back? What happens if the show is canceled, as happened this year with the Bonaroo Festival? We’re talking about some serious inconvenience, aren’t we? Wherever you go, whether your driving to Colorado, Nevada, Tennessee or anywhere else in this continent, you want to perform your due diligence and make sure the vehicle is up for the trip before you go. And it doesn’t really matter if you’re driving somewhere to see some live music or for any other purpose. A breakdown can be costly and may put you at the mercy of weather conditions or nefarious characters that come across you while y...

Performance Unlimited Blog

Search This Blog